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You can find more information regarding this film on its IMDb page.
- Addeddate
- 2004-06-18 22:22:01
- Closed captioning
- no
- Color
- b&w
- Director
- Charles Lamont
- Identifier
- international_crime
- Sound
- sound
- Type
- MovingImage
comment
Reviews
(10)
Reviewer:
Dark Moon
-
favoritefavoritefavorite -
June 19, 2011 (edited)
Subject: Amusing
I'm with Dr Feel Rotten on this one. The byplay between Cranston/The Shadow (La Rocque) and both Phoebe (Astrid Allwin) and the police commissioner ... (Thomas Jackson) was pretty much the entertainment for me. It was refreshing to see him get the better of the boss's daughter (or niece, in this case) without needing to be an abusive bully to do so, and gratifying to see the commissioner boil when his force was constantly revealed to be less than a shining example of effectiveness.
There is a small cultural artifact in the film that may be noteworthy to anyone with an interest in the history of technology. At about 0:41, Cranston is snooping about in an apartment that belongs to a member of the gang he is investigating. Phoebe shows up, and then the phone rings. Cranston answers it, passing himself off as the gang member. The caller turns out to be another member of the gang. Immediately after, Cranston calls the operator and asks that the previous call be traced. He and Phoebe are both dismayed to learn that "they can't trace a call on a dial phone."
Dial telephones and automatic exchanges were new in the 1930's; it took years for them to be installed everywhere. Many people were still accustomed to having operators connect their calls, even after dial phones were introduced in their areas. The idea that calls could be completed automagically just from the signals sent by a rotary dial, without human intervention, was new and foreign to them. This film in the Prelinger Collection on how to use the new dial telephone may be of interest.
I downloaded the 688 MB MP4 file available here. The print quality is very good, with a sharp picture and clear sound, though there are a few repair splices with frames missing. Encoding is clear, with no pixelation or artifacts.
Subject: Amusing
I'm with Dr Feel Rotten on this one. The byplay between Cranston/The Shadow (La Rocque) and both Phoebe (Astrid Allwin) and the police commissioner ... (Thomas Jackson) was pretty much the entertainment for me. It was refreshing to see him get the better of the boss's daughter (or niece, in this case) without needing to be an abusive bully to do so, and gratifying to see the commissioner boil when his force was constantly revealed to be less than a shining example of effectiveness.
There is a small cultural artifact in the film that may be noteworthy to anyone with an interest in the history of technology. At about 0:41, Cranston is snooping about in an apartment that belongs to a member of the gang he is investigating. Phoebe shows up, and then the phone rings. Cranston answers it, passing himself off as the gang member. The caller turns out to be another member of the gang. Immediately after, Cranston calls the operator and asks that the previous call be traced. He and Phoebe are both dismayed to learn that "they can't trace a call on a dial phone."
Dial telephones and automatic exchanges were new in the 1930's; it took years for them to be installed everywhere. Many people were still accustomed to having operators connect their calls, even after dial phones were introduced in their areas. The idea that calls could be completed automagically just from the signals sent by a rotary dial, without human intervention, was new and foreign to them. This film in the Prelinger Collection on how to use the new dial telephone may be of interest.
I downloaded the 688 MB MP4 file available here. The print quality is very good, with a sharp picture and clear sound, though there are a few repair splices with frames missing. Encoding is clear, with no pixelation or artifacts.
Reviewer:
sciwriter
-
favoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
January 8, 2011
Subject: Enjoyable movie
Subject: Enjoyable movie
Well written and acted.
Bret Morrison WAS the Shadow on radio. The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows. Hs ha ha ha ... ha....He influenced my generation of sci-fi writers (I'm 74):
http://www.oldtimeradiofans.com/template.php?show_name=The%20Shadow
In the 1960's, I wrote sci-fi stories for Noman & Undersea Agents comic books (Tower Pub. Co.) Noman, an android with the content of a scientist's brain etched onto its brain, was a member of the THUNDER Agents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.H.U.N.D.E.R._Agents
My byline doesn't appear because I wrote as a consultant
Bret Morrison WAS the Shadow on radio. The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows. Hs ha ha ha ... ha....He influenced my generation of sci-fi writers (I'm 74):
http://www.oldtimeradiofans.com/template.php?show_name=The%20Shadow
In the 1960's, I wrote sci-fi stories for Noman & Undersea Agents comic books (Tower Pub. Co.) Noman, an android with the content of a scientist's brain etched onto its brain, was a member of the THUNDER Agents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.H.U.N.D.E.R._Agents
My byline doesn't appear because I wrote as a consultant
Reviewer:
Dr Feel Rotten
-
favoritefavoritefavorite -
January 7, 2011
Subject: more comedy than suspense here
Subject: more comedy than suspense here
I liked the movie a good deal, but the suspense fell flat. I was far more entertained by the "Shadow" figure and the girl than the actual plot.
Reviewer:
porterville
-
favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
September 9, 2010
Subject: "The Shadow"
Subject: "The Shadow"
An entertaining and enjoyable film. The main and supporting actors were capable of handling the plot and held my attention. This is different than the
...
radio series, but good in its own right.
Reviewer:
accalaurie49
-
favoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
September 8, 2010
Subject: International Politics
Subject: International Politics
This is my 2. Shadow experience, the first being "The Shadow Strikes" here at IA, so I will not discuss the issue if the picture shown to us here has any
...
resemblance to the "real" Shadow or not.
The movie is enjoyable and quite funny. The Shadow gets involved into international politics and at one time has to stage an aristocrat from a german speaking country speaking english with an accent. As far as I´m concerned he does his job quite well.
Rod La Rocque and the whole cast are good. One reviewer compares this movie to the "Thin Man" movies. The comparison fits, because this is a mixture between crime story and comedy as these were too. Well, I won´t forget this movie. I will watch it again.
The following may contain SPOILERS but I can´t help mentioning it: At one point of the movie there are mentioned aristocrats planning a "revolution". I think what is meant a coup d´etat.
The movie is enjoyable and quite funny. The Shadow gets involved into international politics and at one time has to stage an aristocrat from a german speaking country speaking english with an accent. As far as I´m concerned he does his job quite well.
Rod La Rocque and the whole cast are good. One reviewer compares this movie to the "Thin Man" movies. The comparison fits, because this is a mixture between crime story and comedy as these were too. Well, I won´t forget this movie. I will watch it again.
The following may contain SPOILERS but I can´t help mentioning it: At one point of the movie there are mentioned aristocrats planning a "revolution". I think what is meant a coup d´etat.
Reviewer:
Shadows_Girl
-
favoritefavoritefavorite -
August 21, 2007
Subject: Shadow of the Shadow
Subject: Shadow of the Shadow
Now here is a subject I know a fair bit amount since my late uncle Bret (real name Burt) Morrison WAS "The Shadow" for a good many years. So, let's talk
...
about THIS version and we'll look at a brief history of how the character evolved over the years while we're at it).
ORIGINALLY "The Shadow" was NOT a character at all. What he WAS was a radio announcer (in the style of Raymond on "Inner Sanctum" or Old Nancy on "The Witch's Tale" or The Man in Black on "Suspense" or...but you get the idea so I'll stop before I travel through time all the way to the Crypt-Keeper. He did NOT take part in the stories he presented. He just introduced them and, later, closed the show. In fact, the show wasn't even CALLED The Shadow at the time. It was called DETECTIVE STORY HOUR and was sponsored by Street and Smith publications. There was no Shadow Magazine, either, and Walter B. Gibson (alias Maxwell Grant) had nothing to do with any of this up to this point. The Shadow also served to introduce and narrate a program devoted to Love Stories. This was all between 1930 and 1938. But THEN things changed. Orson Welles was hired to be "The Shadow" as we know him today with Margo (not Phoebe) Lane as his companion and with the alternate identity of Lamont Cranston and Walter B. Gibson was NOW writing the stories that would appear in THE SHADOW MAGAZINE as well as provide fodder for the radio series.
Actually, in the original stories as published in THE SHADOW MAGAZINE, Lamont Cranston ISN'T The Shadow. And he didn't have the power to cloud men's minds. What he had was stealth and a mastery of disguise (think Ninja training). Oh his real name was Kent Allard but he sometimes borrowed Cranston's identity when Cranston was out of town (Cranston knew about this and was agreeable to it).
OK, well, we could go on forever about The Shadow and his various incarnations and upgrades but we'll put it like this---THIS movie is somewhere in between the James LoCurto/Frank Readick versions of The Shadow as announcer and narrator and the later Orson Welles/Lamont Cranston/Shadow version that later became standard whenever radio or film presented the character to us.
So this version is valid on its own terms, I think, because a "standardized Shadow" hadn't yet appeared because of the differences between the magazine stories and the radio version. (These later all but disappeared as the magazine version began to mimic the radio version to please the fans).
So please always remember and never forget:
"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit, crime does NOT pay...the Shadow knows....MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
ORIGINALLY "The Shadow" was NOT a character at all. What he WAS was a radio announcer (in the style of Raymond on "Inner Sanctum" or Old Nancy on "The Witch's Tale" or The Man in Black on "Suspense" or...but you get the idea so I'll stop before I travel through time all the way to the Crypt-Keeper. He did NOT take part in the stories he presented. He just introduced them and, later, closed the show. In fact, the show wasn't even CALLED The Shadow at the time. It was called DETECTIVE STORY HOUR and was sponsored by Street and Smith publications. There was no Shadow Magazine, either, and Walter B. Gibson (alias Maxwell Grant) had nothing to do with any of this up to this point. The Shadow also served to introduce and narrate a program devoted to Love Stories. This was all between 1930 and 1938. But THEN things changed. Orson Welles was hired to be "The Shadow" as we know him today with Margo (not Phoebe) Lane as his companion and with the alternate identity of Lamont Cranston and Walter B. Gibson was NOW writing the stories that would appear in THE SHADOW MAGAZINE as well as provide fodder for the radio series.
Actually, in the original stories as published in THE SHADOW MAGAZINE, Lamont Cranston ISN'T The Shadow. And he didn't have the power to cloud men's minds. What he had was stealth and a mastery of disguise (think Ninja training). Oh his real name was Kent Allard but he sometimes borrowed Cranston's identity when Cranston was out of town (Cranston knew about this and was agreeable to it).
OK, well, we could go on forever about The Shadow and his various incarnations and upgrades but we'll put it like this---THIS movie is somewhere in between the James LoCurto/Frank Readick versions of The Shadow as announcer and narrator and the later Orson Welles/Lamont Cranston/Shadow version that later became standard whenever radio or film presented the character to us.
So this version is valid on its own terms, I think, because a "standardized Shadow" hadn't yet appeared because of the differences between the magazine stories and the radio version. (These later all but disappeared as the magazine version began to mimic the radio version to please the fans).
So please always remember and never forget:
"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit, crime does NOT pay...the Shadow knows....MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Reviewer:
jimelena
-
favorite -
August 4, 2007
Subject: Seen it
Subject: Seen it
I'd forgotten that I'd already seen this.
Because it is very forgettalble.
Because it is very forgettalble.
Reviewer:
billbarstad
-
favoritefavorite -
April 15, 2006
Subject: Seen worse
Subject: Seen worse
A pretty forgettable film all in all. Similar to a 'Thin Man' movie. There are some funny bits. The jail scene has a funny rubbery drunk.
I downloaded ... the mpeg1 file. The audio was quite clean, the video, however, was poor.
I downloaded ... the mpeg1 file. The audio was quite clean, the video, however, was poor.
Reviewer:
cashel
-
favoritefavoritefavorite -
July 15, 2004 (edited)
Subject: flashback to silentf ilms
Subject: flashback to silentf ilms
The lead actor, Rod La Rocque was one of stars of silent films. He started in 1914 and continued till 1941. It is a myth that SOund ended the careers of
...
most careers. In reality , they continued acting but as they aged their vogue diminished . He retired wealthy and happy to his farming estate in 1941 . It is a pity that the script of this film is rather dull .Rod and his wife Vilma are mentioned in film SUNSET BOULEVARD..."William Holden says that"Vilma Banky and Rod La Rocque must have swam in that pool a thousand nights ago"Actually vilma was never able to swim" This Quote is from a book by K C Lahue. (thanks,Kalton)..
Reviewer:
Bangkok Ajarn
-
favoritefavoritefavoritefavorite -
July 14, 2004
Subject: Worth the time
Subject: Worth the time
This is a fun little B-movie with a typical B-movie plot, typical B-movie acting and dialogue. It seems to be extremely loosely based on the old Shadow
...
radio program. You have Lamont Cranston as the shadow, but this shadow is a crime reporter/radio announcer/amateur criminologist and doesn't have the power to "cloud men's minds" to make himself invisible. There is also police commissioner Weston like in the Radio Show, but the female lead is Febe Lane and not Margo Lane. Go figure! It isn't a classic but is an interesting little piece of work for those who enjoy old-style simplistic detective stories like myself.
There are 10 reviews for this item. .
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